


The True Story of the Hound of the Baskervilles

by zibbylorn



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 23:47:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3915220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zibbylorn/pseuds/zibbylorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You may know the story of the hound of the Baskervilles, but the true story is so much more... mysterious! This is a light-hearted story for all those dog lovers out there who just want the hound to have a happy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The True Story of the Hound of the Baskervilles

No one knows where I came from, not even me. Perhaps I have always been here, among the fog and the peat bogs, perhaps the moor created me one day. I don’t even know. My memories extend back beyond the farthest reaches of time, but they may not be my own memories, for they could be the memories of the earth, of the rain, of the many lives that have lived within the scope of mine. But for all those who may doubt me, I do not simply exist in the minds of the folk who live in the moor. I am more than just legend, and my body, though not corporeal, occupies space in the real, tangible world. So when you hear the stories they tell, over mugs of ale and steaming cups of soup, you must listen close, and only then might you realize why I am the cause of the chill that races down the backs of anyone caught out on the moor at night.

But please, also know this: I do not wish to harm anyone who is innocent. Those worthy of the moor, those who have come to love the spongy turf and bleak stones that can both give and take life, will find themselves safely back home to their beds every night, for I am there to protect them. But anyone who dares to upset the moor, anyone whose path strays too far from the way of life that sustains itself here, will face my justice. I am a watcher in the night. I am here to protect those who uphold my values. The legends, the stories, must come from somewhere, for there is always truth in fiction, no matter how embellished an innkeeper’s tale may be. There is reason to fear the hound of the Baskervilles. I am the hound of the Baskervilles, and you must fear me.

My story has no beginning, and it will never have an end. But this particular story is one that even humans can understand, and it begins with a hound and a can of phosphorous paint.

Like any dog, I am gifted with an extremely powerful nose. And like any supernatural creature, I am gifted with the ability to sense beyond the tangible world. So it would be to no one’s surprise that the moment that awful chemical entered the moor, I knew about it, and I knew that it was a bad sign. And if I were one to read omens (and as an omen myself I probably should be), the large, black dog accompanying the phosphorous was a similarly worrying sign. Something was not right in the moor.

I kept my eye on them, the dog and the paint, and I also kept my on the human responsible for bringing the bad omens into my territory. I usually try to keep nose out of the business of men, but this thin man with a proclivity for chasing after butterflies was definitely to be feared. I needed to keep my eye on him, for he seemed to be brewing up trouble.

And it was trouble indeed. The poor old man who lived alone up in the big mansion went out one night to wait by the gate, a fact to which I was alerted at once. But I was on the other side of the moor, meeting with a band of wild ponies that had lost of one of their kin to a peat bog, and even though I rushed away as quickly as possible (ponies have a hard time letting you go once they have your attention), I did not arrive in time to see what had happened. Throughout the moor, I could smell the old man’s fear, and I could hear his heartbeat pick up, quickly, like a waltz out of time, and then stop suddenly. There were other scents that I suspected—that of the butterfly man and his evil, phosphorescent dog, but they traveled through so much of the moor together, poisoning such broad reaches of my domain, that I could not fully choose to blame them either.

I circled around the corpse of the old man once, twice, three times. He showed no sign of harm, but mortals are weak creatures and sometimes they just fall over dead. This man had clearly done something of the sort, his heart pushed just a little too hard by his fear. Then I traced his footprints from the gate back to the house. There was another scent there, that of the evil dog, and my hackles raised up automatically, despite the dog having left many minutes before. I sniffed around a few more times to secure the smell of the dog in my mind, then loped off back into the moor. I must admit, I am sometimes not as careful as I could be, balancing a physical and spiritual body, and it is possible that I left a few of my own paw prints behind in the mud by the gate. The prints were certainly a cause for alarm, for the moment the maid of the house found the dead man’s body, she screamed first in terror for her encounter with death, and then in terror out of ominous tracks in the mud. She sensed what had happened here during the night.

I get blamed a lot for things that go wrong, and it’s hardly ever my fault. Humans are very definitely touched in the head, because they just can’t seem to let their flair for superstition go. A horse stumbles on a flat path on the way home at night, and they all think I was there, nipping at its heels. A little boy leaves his sandwich out on a rock by the pasture he’s tending and it disappears when he turns back to eat it, and there are stories through all the inns in town that I was out looking for a tasty lunch—as if they can’t imagine any other hungry animals in the woods! So the moment a man falls dead outside his home, a look of terror on his face and paw prints circling his body, there is no doubt in the minds of the residents of the moor: I am the culprit.

There’s a bloody criminal running through the countryside, of little bother to me, for he stays on the path and doesn’t wander at night, but cause for officers to pour into the moor from abroad, stomping their boots into my sacred soil, churning up turf and not even catching their prey. But the imagination of the folk here is so vivid, so quick to turn to the supernatural, that a cold-blooded known murderer couldn’t possibly be the reason for the death of old Baskerville. No – it had to be me. A dog. A ghost, carried by the wind.

The lights were on all day and all night after the Baskerville man was found. Carriages came and went, men on horseback and ladies stepping carefully with their large skirts to avoid the mud. Then it went silent, and the moor quieted more than it had in days. I resumed my usual patrol, barking at ponies and hedgehogs and anything that moved, and howling encouragement to the moon every night. But the balance still did not return to normal. I even checked in with the shivering, huddled mess of a human the criminal was, and the butterfly man and his female companion, but everything and everyone was quiet. Too quiet, so quiet that if you stepped out onto the moor, the moon would hide behind clouds for fear of disrupting the peace. Even the rain stayed away, for no one wanted to be the first to act after the tragedy.

So I passed my time as I always had, confident as I wound my way through the trees, for if I saw no strange activity, I had no reason for concern. What’s the point in being all-powerful if you’re going to worry all the time? It was my job to be a watcher, not a fixer, and watching was what I do best.

And watch I did, as the carriage full of the strangers came bumping in to Baskerville Hall. One was a careful man, with a slight limp and a notebook he would pull out at the tiniest, least-noteworthy breeze, to record his observations. The other was very sturdily built, sure in his footing, but his voice betrayed him—he was more of an outsider here in this land than anyone, and that made him the least likely to believe in me. I lurked in the shadows, observing their movements. They were here to investigate the death at Baskerville, which made more sense when I came to overhear (sound travels far in the moor, especially if you have hearing as good as mine) that the sturdier man was a relative of the lately deceased.

They tramped through my moor, let me tell you. They tramped all over it. Boots in mud and boots in peat, and boots in nice little growing things, all in search of some answers. And I would have liked to help them, for I was curious about the truth as well, and I had much better leads than they could hope for, but I was not supposed to interfere. I could conduct my own investigation, one that involved tracking smells instead of asking questions. The men that had come were good men, and though they walked ignorantly through my moor, they had a deference towards it and the living things within it that told me to leave them alone.

These men were not like that Hugo Baskerville, who had done those awful things to that girl so many years ago. It is cases such as those that I am allowed to take control of, to mete out punishment as I see fit. My swift legs and vice-like jaw are reserved for only the most heinous of crimes, for only the most vile of criminals. I was not going to give my justice to the escaped criminal lurking on the moor, and definitely not to the silly men who wanted the same answers that I did. But that horrible Hugo Baskerville—well, all stories do have a grounding in reality, and I am well known for being a terrifying creature.

So I was wary, but still reserving myself from any judgments. There was too much turmoil in the moor, too many people moving about cautiously, not wanting to look out of place. I dismissed the newcomers of any guilt, and I still had my eye on the butterfly man, with his dark wife and the dog that lurked in its cage, beady-eyed and hungry, too powerful for its own good. I was wary of the dog, but one thing I knew about the mortal equivalent of my kind was that they are either stupidly loyal creatures, or stupidly raised creatures. This evil canine didn’t have a loyal bone in its body for it was so full of hate for its master, and it was too big and too dumb to know what to do with itself. If I could get past the overwhelming stench of phosphorous that I’m sure bothered the poor beast as well, I actually began to feel sorry for the monster.

Then arrived another man, tall and carrying with him a disgusting habit for smoking the pipe. He arrived in the night, but waited until the break of day to venture out into the moor. Though I was sure that I had never seen him in the area, he walked in a manner that would suggest that he knew more than any normal visitor could ever know. He established himself in one of the huts deep in the moor—a location that I couldn’t be more impressed with, for it offered great views of the entire surrounding area, while still being tucked away from any wandering stranger.

I was wary at first, as I always am with visitors, but especially because he acted much differently than any human I had encountered. I had thought he was just going to look around for a bit in the moor and then return to the town, but he showed no signs of wanting to join his fellow kinfolk. But strange though his behavior was, I quickly realized that I didn’t need to worry about him. His every movement was precise, and though he snuck around more than the usual innocent person would, he carried no air of guilt. He was doing exactly what those two men staying at Baskerville Hall were trying to do—find some answers.

And I couldn’t fault him for that. In fact, I had spent a few nights taking care of my own business, leaving the fate of the moor in the hands of Mother Nature for a change. I found the can of phosphorous, stinking up an old mine shaft near the house of the butterfly man. The shaft had his scent mixed throughout it, though an ordinary dog may have missed it because of the overwhelming chemical fumes of the phosphorous. I also went to see the dog, and I apologized to the poor creature for treating it with such disdain. It obviously never asked to be burdened with the task of terrifying the souls of the moor (that’s my job), and it definitely didn’t want to be covered in phosphorous paint, a sticky residue that worked its way throughout its mangy coat. The stench of the butterfly man was there as well, and that was about as much evidence I needed to confirm his guilt. But my justice cannot be wrong, because I was put on this earth to serve the people fairly, and so I had to wait, and watch for him to prove his guilt through his actions.

The man with the limp continued his regular walks through the moor. He stayed away from the bogs, always carried a torch, and was wary, like me, of the man with the butterfly net. One day, from atop my favorite viewpoint on one of the rockiest of tors, I saw him approach the hut of the strange newcomer, the man with the pipe. Having been keeping my eyes and ears on alert all day regarding the pipe man, I knew he was in residency, so it came as a surprise to me that neither man came out of the hut for a very long time—until the sun went down. Clearly they knew each other, or something terribly bad had occurred. But in my gut I trusted both men, and so I couldn’t imagine that one had harmed the other.

I grew weary of waiting for the hut door to open, so I let myself wander slightly, to patrol some of the outer edges, though I kept my ears on alert in case either of the men decided to venture into the moor. Not far from the men, it became evident that something was amiss. I loped over to the cage where the dog was kept, but the door was open, and the beast was gone. Similarly, the man with the butterfly net was not in his house, though his female companion waited inside, her face pressed anxiously to the window. I smelled mixed scents—that of the sturdy man who came to live in Baskerville Hall, and that of the criminal. I could foresee no reason for these men to be together, which gave me cause for worry, even if neither man seemed to be a threat. Mischief comes in all shapes in sizes, and is very difficult to predict.

In the midst of my confusion towards the mixed scents, I was about to follow the trail when I heard a voice cry out in the night, then the aftershock I always feel when life leaves the moor. Not far from me, the men in the hut ran out because of the commotion, and I almost betrayed myself by running after them. I was very fortunate to have controlled myself enough to restrain from close pursuit, because by the time I arrived at the scene of the screaming man, I could see the two men standing, stricken by the profile of the evil dog against the night sky and the rocky, pointed tors. I could feel their hearts quicken with fear, and I was glad that I had not shown myself to them, for I don’t know if they could have handled anything truly supernatural at that point. Not many can, and they’re almost exclusively those who have lived their entire lives in the moor.

The cause of the commotion, besides the giant, evil dog, which bounded off into the darkness seconds after the men appeared, was the body of the man crumpled at the foot of the tor. He smelled of both the criminal and the Baskerville, which explained my earlier confusion. But he was dead, and with the two men already attending to him, there was little for me to do. Instead I decided to chase after the dog, whose phosphorescent trail was easy to follow. By the time I had caught up with it, it had been wrangled back into its cage, the butterfly man standing over it checking the lock was secure. The death of the criminal was his fault, I was sure of it, but I was not sure why he would want the criminal to be dead. Perhaps he had seen something that he shouldn’t have, or perhaps he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He smelled all wrong, and the man never meant harm to the moor—like I said, mischief is often hard to predict, and harder still to understand.

I was closing in on my judgment, and though I knew the butterfly man was guilty, I still didn’t have the full amount of evidence I needed to mete out my justice. Luckily for me, and unluckily for him, all that changed in a few days.

One more man, a visitor, arrived by train, and he seemed to know the two other visitors quite well. He carried an air about him, one of authority and also foolhardy masculinity, and I knew that the group of men were, like me, honing in on their prey. But still, everyone bided their time, waiting for the hound to appear again, for evidence was needed above everything else. Perhaps there would be a fight, in the end, to see who would get to be the final judge in the fate of the butterfly man.

The men did not have long to wait at all, and the moment events started to roll into motion, I was on top of them the entire time. The sturdy Baskerville, heading home from a walk through the moor, was set upon by the evil phosphorescent dog. With the help of his friends, he was able to escape from the beast, and that was when I moved into action. I lurked about, waiting until the man with the butterfly net appeared to wrangle up the dog. He did not take long to move into action, and he had lost his air of caution. He cursed the men who had rescued the Baskerville, cursed the Baskerville for taking what was rightfully his, and cursed the dog for not doing its job. That was evidence enough for me to move to justice. I leapt forward, snapping my jaws at the leash that was restraining the dog. The tether snapped, and the dog bounded free. I smelled cold steel and knew the man behind me was drawing his gun, and so I nipped at the heels of the phosphorous-covered dog, urging it to flee. The acrid stench of gunpowder filled the air, followed by an accompanying crack of the bullet, but it missed its target. The dog and I continued to sprint away, and we moved so quickly that we soon escaped danger. I wanted to turn back towards the man, but I needed to deal with the poor animal first.

It was in a sorry state, but it would definitely be okay. I urged it to clean itself fully, by rolling itself in the wet, spongy peat, and then to leave the moor forever. It would be able to find a loving home outside of this environment, for it just needed a loving master and a calmer guiding hand. The dog whuffed once in thanks, then loped into the darkness. I never saw it again, but I know that the dog is happy now, serving a much better master than its previous.

Having dealt with the dog, I turned back into the moor to deal with the man. His tracks were easy to follow, as the stench of fear permeates everything it touches in the moor. He cut a wide path around where the dog had attacked Baskerville, but he was heading in the general direction of his house. As he neared, however, he turned slightly and set off deeper into the mire. I could hear the voices of the men, but there were no shouts of alarm, and I knew that my time for justice had come. I put my nose to the ground, and let my canine instincts take over. The butterfly man was scared and running for his life, and he couldn’t make himself easier to be found. I quickly caught up to him, and he turned, his eyes opened wide, his mouth uttering a simple “It’s real” then my jaws were at his throat and he was no more.

As his body fell backwards, splashing into the bog, the water rippled for a few moments then the green plant matter worked its way back to a flat, calm surface. Life would go on in the moor as it always had and it always would; this was just a brief blip, a small error that had been set to rights. I felt the world around me heave a sigh of relief, plants rustling into a more comfortable place, and for the first time, the moon wasn’t too shy to come out, illuminating the alien landscape that surrounded me. My coat gleamed and hummed with the moonlight, and I was careful to keep to the deepest of shadows as I made my way back to the butterfly man’s house.

There, all the humans were talking quietly—apparently someone had traced the evil man’s footprints, but they had only led to the dead end in the bog where I had disposed of him. Their pulses were slow, and they did not have any fear. They knew that they were safe once again, and the land set back to normal. As they headed towards Baskerville Hall, only the tall pipe-man turned back, and I was not careful enough to retreat into the shadows. His eyes glanced over my body, a small smile of satisfaction flickered across his face, and he nodded curtly, then turned around. Perhaps of all the visitors, he was worthy of knowing the truth about me. I reserve myself to only be shown to those who are truly deserving of knowing my tale, and this man is not one to run to the press. He was simply seeking the absolute truth, and I could help with that.

Since the events of that night, the moor has returned to peace once more. The visitors left, and the new Baskerville settled right into the space the old Baskerville had vacated. For a few nights, there were officers stepping carefully through the peat, across the moor, but they soon after retreated back to their trains and their city, satisfied that the butterfly man would not come back.

And he would not. It is my job to protect the moor, to be the moor, to keep watch on the moor, and I would never let anything of the kind of evil men are capable of into the moor. My justice may be swift but it is always pure, and it will continue as long as the fogs roll in and out, and the peat breathes life back into the air as easily as it takes it.

As long as the moor is here, I too will be here, watching and protecting. And I shall not leave my post until it is asked of me. But until then, continue to listen for me in the stories the innkeepers love to tell, and look for me in the darkest shadows on a moonlight night, among the tors and the fog.


End file.
